Solve
by FuchsiaMae
Summary: In which the cube-and-button system is invented, and Caroline shows her intelligence.


**A/N**: Set during Caroline's first year or so at Aperture - she's still young and naive, and most people don't yet take her seriously. This is one of the events that starts to change perceptions of her.

**Disclaimer**: Portal and all associated characters belong to Valve.

.

**Solve**

"What if we…" One of the lab-coated men started to gesture at the diagram, but then his hand went limp. "No, never mind."

Another opened his mouth to speak, paused, and came up with only a muttered curse. "Dammit, how do we _do_ this?"

Cave Johnson was silent, shooting a death glare at the engineers clustered around the schematic. He was just considering firing all of them at once and getting a whole new team on the project when the door opened and his assistant's head popped in. "Mr. Johnson?"

He glanced at her absently. "Can it wait, Caroline? We're a little busy."

"I just need to know what you want to do with these spare storage boxes." She held up her ever-present clipboard, showing him an order for one hundred thousand storage boxes instead of one thousand.

He did not need this right now. "I dunno, use them to store stuff?" he replied irritably, and squeezed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Just make sure they're not in the way."

"That's just it, sir. They're taking up too much space in the warehouse, and there's nowhere else to put them."

Around the schematic, one of the engineers spoke up. "Can we reconfigure the button to keep the door open after it's pressed?"

This suggestion earned universal glares. "We just spent weeks building that button system, and you want to do it _again_?" the head tech said acidly.

The one who'd made the suggestion was cowed. "No, I guess not…"

Cave had had enough. "What the hell am I paying you people for?" he growled. "It's a _button_! A button _you invented_! And you're trying to tell me you can't work _your own damn button_?"

"Actually sir, it's a Heavy-Duty Super-Colliding—"

"IT'S A BUTTON!"

A silent beat passed. The technician finished faintly, "…Super Button. Sir."

"Get out."

He went.

Caroline, meanwhile, was peering at the schematic over the engineers' shoulders. She looked thoughtful. "What exactly is wrong with this?"

"It doesn't _work_, for chrissakes," her boss muttered. He looked about to break something.

"It's part of our new test setup for the Portal Quantum Tunneling Device," one of the scientists explained, attempting to retain his patience. "The subject has to press the button to open the exit door and finish the test. The problem is that the button only holds the door open as long as it's depressed—so the minute the test subject stops holding the button down, the door closes. In hindsight, it's a bit of a design flaw."

"What if you use something else to hold the button down while the test subject goes through the door?"

"Like what?"

"There are a hundred thousand unused storage boxes sitting in the warehouse right now. They should be heavy enough, but if they're not we could just weight them down."

Cave's mood swing was immediate. "Brilliant!" he crowed. "That's the kind of resourceful thinking we need."

The remaining engineers, though, were still skeptical. "How would we make it work with the rest of the test?" the head tech asked dubiously.

"Getting to the box and bringing it back to the button could be an extra layer of the puzzle." She grabbed a pencil and started to sketch on an empty corner of the paper. "For instance—what if the box were on a high platform? Then the test subject would have to retrieve it using the portal device before placing it on the button. Or—" she was clearly getting excited now "—what if you used it in conjunction with the Particle Emancipation Grid?"

"But the Emancipation Grid vaporizes anything that isn't a portal device or a test subject—"

"Exactly! So here's what we do." She was now sketching madly. "Two rooms, connected by an Emancipation Grid. The button and door on one side, the box on the other. Somehow, the test subject has to get the box to the button without vaporizing it."

"But that's _impossible_—"

"_So_ we leave a small opening in the wall above the Emancipation Grid. Not big enough to climb through, but big enough to open a portal in the other room, bypassing the grid. Portal on one side, portal on the other, go through with the box and you've solved the chamber!"

Looking up from the drawing, eyes bright with exhilaration, she met with astonished stares.

Cave was the first to find his voice. He pointed at the head tech. "Caroline, do you want his job?"

"Mr. Johnson!" she laughed.

"I'm serious, woman! Say the word and I'll fire him right now." The engineer's indignant expression was ignored.

"But sir, I could never be in charge of testing. Who would make your coffee?"

That made him smile. "I guess you've got a point. Well, go tell the boys in the warehouse to haul those boxes over." He turned back to the dumbstruck engineers. "Fellas, we're done here." He started to leave, Caroline at his heels.

"I could've done that," the head tech grumbled in a tone he thought was too low to hear.

Johnson heard. "Then how come her bonus is coming out of your paycheck? Write that down, Caroline."

"Yes sir."

And he closed the door behind them.

She started down the hallway to the warehouse, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her. "Caroline?"

"Yes sir?"

"If there are any more brilliant ideas in that pretty little head of yours, you let me know."

She blushed. "Anything for science, sir."


End file.
